3ET: Black Bullet

You can't run from writing as heavy-handed as this.

Studio: Kinema Citrus

Director: Kojima Masayuki (Monster, Master Keaton)

Writer: Urahata Tatsuhiko (Monster, Murder Princess)

Main Cast:

Kaji Yuuki as Satomi Rentarou

Hidaka Rina as Aihara Enju

Character Design: Umishima Chiho
Music: Sagisu Shirou (Bleach, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic)

Black Bullet starts with an effectively creepy scene where a tent city is attacked by a giant moth. Maybe it's my personal phobia of moths, but I was right there with all of those people screaming in terror. I really can't think of anything scarier, at least on land (nothing scares me more than giant squid). Anyway, the scene does its job perfectly fine by setting up what threat humanity is fighting, in this case giant bugs caused by a virus, and that is a perfectly compelling enemy for humanity to fight. At that moment, I had hope that this show could succeed. However, those hopes were dashed, and they were dashed quite quickly.

Part of the dashing comes from the bland, unlikeable characters. Satomi Rentarou is an officer who fights the giant bugs using a gun that shoots bullets made out of a sort of unobtanium. He is standard anime protagonist model #891. His partner is a little girl with superpowers thanks to having the virus as part of her DNA. The girl, named Aihara Enju, also has a creepy obsession with Rentarou, constantly flirting with him and making sexual innuendos. She's ten. This comes off exactly as unsetttling as it sounds, especially since it's clear that Rentarou cares for Enju in a completely clean way. The other characters on their side are Rentarou's superiour and a doctor. First impressions mean something to me, so when both women tell Rentarou to go kill himself as soon as they're seen, I immediately hate them. The only character I do like is the only one who has a personality, the masked villain who is trying to exterminate humanity by summoning a super-powerful bug that can destroy the barrier made of unobtainium. He has a black sense of humor that is actually funny, and I'd totally watch a show about him and his daughter wrecking havoc on the city.

Giant Spider-chan wants to give Enju a hug.

But, the terrible cast isn't the real reason I disliked Black Bullet. That would be the awful storytelling. The first part of said awful storytelling comes in the way the characters talk. Someone will be talking to Rentarou, take a doctor he visits as an example, and she'll start going off on something that he clearly should know. For example, the history of the virus or how the monoliths made of unobtanium are the only things protecting them from the giant bugs. Or the scene where he is in a group of elite anti-bug officers who nee the leader of Tokyo explained to them. Either way, these scenes only exist to tell the audience what is going on, and they come off as unnatural because people don't talk like that. It's clumsy exposition with zero amount of subtlety. 

And I don't have any urge to watch a show that clumsy in the way it tells it story. Black Bullet is a fail for forgetting the old adage that less is more. Don't use four scenes of the little girls being treated as sub-human trash when one or two will get the job done. It is no crime to bring the audience along slowly and suggest less than savory things are afoot. Especially when the alternative is to rub their faces in the dog shit. No one enjoys that, and I certainly didn't enjoy it while watching this show. Thankfully, I on't have to worry about it, as I won't be watching anymore.